The Reeve's Tale

by Margaret Frazer

  ‘Who else?“ Frevisse asked.

  Walter named two other men, one of them a juror, the other raising his hand from the far end of the nave to show he was there. To Frevisse’s question, they both agreed that Walter and Hamon had said what Father Edmund said they had said. “Walter even asked Hamon twice,” the juror said. “Twice he said it, and twice Hamon answered he would.”

  Both the other man and Father Edmund agreed to that, and Frevisse looked to Hamon. He looked down at his feet. He was not as young as he had seemed to her at first sight, and she thought now it was not lack of years but lack of good sense that made his face so soft as she said with curbed impatience, “Well, Hamon? Three men besides Walter Hopper say they heard you say you’d work for him if you failed the debt. Have you answer to that?”

  Hamon started to scuff his right foot at the floor without looking up. “I might have said it. I was that glad he was going surety for me, I’d likely have said anything. But I never signed…”

  ‘But you said it,“ Frevisse interrupted.

  Hamon tucked his chin down more sullenly. “I said it,” he granted.

  ‘Before witnesses.“

  ‘Aye.“ Grudgingly.

  ‘Then it would seem to me it’s an agreement you must keep.“ From the side of her eye she saw by a small nod of Perryn’s head that he agreed with that. She looked to the jurors. ”Yes?“

  They equally agreed, and while Father Edmund wrote it into the record, Walter clapped a hand on Hamon’s shoulder, saying, “There now. That’s done and it’ll be none so bad, you’ll see. Come on. I’ll stand you a drink when we’re done here,” drawing him away into the crowd.

  Perryn turned to the jurors and said, “It’s Woderove’s holding we have to deal with now,” and if he regretted that as much as Frevisse did, he gave no sign of it. Ignoring both the jurors’ uneasy shifting on their bench and the ripple of talk and movement through the crowd, he looked to Father Edmund. “You have the records for it ready?”

  Father Edmund laid a hand on the scrolls on the table in front of him. “Here.”

  ‘Then read them aloud, if you please, Father.“

  Mary Woderove stepped forward past Tom Hulcote, into the space between jurors and crowd and said angrily at her brother, “You know full well what they say! Everyone knows. That the holding goes to the firstborn son and down the line of sons, and if there are no sons, then to the daughters. You know that and that Matthew and I had nobody, no sons or daughters either, and now you want to take what’s mine away from me because of it and everyone knows that, too!”

  Steadily, looking straightly back at her, Perryn said, “If that’s the right of it, that the custom and law is for the Woderove holding to go by blood from heir to heir, and you say it is, then you say, too, that there being no heir by blood, the holding is in Lord Lovell’s hands for the while, yes?”

  ‘No!“ Mary cried. ”It naught matters what your foul custom says! The holding’s mine! Matthew meant for me to have it!“

  Steadily, as if repeating a thing that he had said before and known he would have to say again to no better end, Perryn said with heavy patience, “If Matthew had, as he sometimes talked of doing, given up the holding to Lord Lovell and taken it back on lease and in the lease given reversion of the holding to you at his death, then, yes, the holding would be yours. But Matthew never did that, and so the holding is not yours.”

  ‘But it can be,“ Mary said sharply. ”It’s for you to say who has it. You’re the reeve. You can give it to me.“

  ‘I’m the reeve,“ Perryn agreed, ”but last say in this is Master Spencer’s, or else even Master Holt’s.“ Lord Lovell’s high steward.

  ‘But the first say is yours,“ Mary flung back, her pretty face all taut with anger, ”and they listen to you!“

  ‘And since they listen to me, I cannot say to them that you should have the holding, because the holding is too much for you to manage on your own.“

  ‘You gave Avice Millwarde her widow’s holding two years ago. Why not me now?“

  ‘Because Avice Millwarde can run a holding and everyone knows it. Everyone likewise knows that you could not.“

  Mary took a step toward her brother and pointed an angry finger up toward his face. “What everybody knows is that I’m your sister and you hate me!”

  Perryn looked down at her with no outward feeling, answering after a moment, “Are you going to let Father Edmund read the custom concerning the holding or not?”

  Mary’s face worked, unlovely for the moment, toward answering that, but before she found it, Father Edmund said quietly from behind his table, “Mary.”

  She jerked her head toward him, looking as ready to snap at him as at her brother.

  Unheeding her anger, Father Edmund said with simple quietness, “Let things go on as you know they have to, Mary. All will be well, I promise you.”

  Mary opened her mouth to say something. Father Edmund cocked his head at her, more in question than rebuke, and she seemed to think better of whatever she had been about to say, closed her mouth, made him a curt curtsy that pointedly ignored her brother, crossed her arms tightly across herself below her breasts, and bowed her head to stare at the floor in a fierce silence that gave up nothing except words.

  Perryn looked near to telling her to step back among the onlookers, but Father Edmund warned him off that with a small shake of his head and, before anything else could happen, began to read from the scroll he had been holding partly unrolled this while. What he read said much the same as what had passed between Mary and her brother concerning the Woderove holding, and when Father Edmund had finished, Perryn looked to the jurors and asked, “Is that how you remember it being in time past?”

  They agreed that it was.

  ‘Does anyone remember otherwise?“ he asked of the onlookers at large.

  No one said they did.

  ‘Then the Woderove holding is in Lord Lovell’s hands, to be kept or given as is seen fit,“ Perryn said. ”Yes?“

  The jurors nodded silent agreement, but Mary said sullenly at the floor, “Then you can give it to me.”

  Ignoring he had heard her, though he must have, Perryn said, “Is there anyone here makes bid to have the holding?”

  Tom Hulcote was stepping forward even as he said it, with an angry glance across to Gilbey Dunn. “I do. I bid for it at the terms Woderove held it and another workday to the lord into the bargain.” He put an arm around Mary’s shoulders. “And I’ll marry the widow with it for good measure.”

  ‘Is she willing to that?“ Perryn asked formally.

  Mary jerked her head up. “Yes. Very willing. And you damnably well know it.”

  Tom Hulcote tightened his arm around her, drawing her to him.

  ‘Is there any other offer?“ Perryn asked, not looking at Gilbey Dunn.

  Gilbey took a measured pace forward, and when Perryn acknowledged him with a nod, said, bold with self-assurance, “I offer to take the holding on lease for twenty years, at six shillings a year, or whatever else may be agreed on between Lord Lovell’s steward and me.”

  Mary Woderove swung out from Tom’s hold and around on Gilbey. “And what becomes of me if you take it all?” she demanded fiercely.

  Gilbey turned a cold look on her. “You have a toft and some land, and he has something.” He made an equally cold look at Tom Hulcote. “Let you marry, if that’s what you want, and live as you can with what you have.”

  Tom laid a hand on Mary’s shoulder. “I want better than that for her!”

  ‘Then you should be a better man,“ Gilbey said coldly back.

  Tom made a threatening step forward. “I’m as good as you and likely better!”

  ‘Then pity you don’t show it,“ Gilbey returned, holding his ground, older than Tom by some not-few years but with no apparent doubt that he’d be his match if their quarrel came to more than words.

  Mary shifted away from them, back toward the onlookers. Elena took a step forward—toward her husba
nd or toward Tom Hulcote, Frevisse wondered—but before more happened, Perryn said, “That’s enough. From both of you. Think on you’re in the church.”

  ‘Let him think…“ Tom Hulcote began.

  ‘You’ll be fined if you keep on like this,“ Perryn warned.

  ‘Fined!“ Tom cried. ”You’d do it, too! Me but not him, because all you’re for is to keep the poor down and folk like him and you up, and don’t think we don’t know it! Them that has, keeps and always has, and now for bad measure you want to take what the rest of us have, too!“

  There were answering grumbles and shifting among some of the onlookers. Father Henry eased away from the wall and in amongst the largest clot of them, beginning to lay hands weightily on various shoulders and saying things into various ears as Father Edmund rose to his feet behind the table to say in his clear, carrying priest’s voice, “Remember, all of you, where you are and what will come of violence done here.”

  Tom Hulcote turned to him with suddenly a desperate plea instead of anger. “Help me in this,” he begged, and pointed at Gilbey. “He has land enough, more than enough. Tell him to let this bit go to someone as needs it!”

  ‘Tom, that isn’t where the issue lies,“ Father Edmund began.

  ‘It is!“ Tom’s anger flared up again. ”Tell him, priest— tell yourself, come to that—what’s said in the Bible about rich men and heaven! You’ve preached it often enough!“

  ‘Tom!“ Perryn warned sharply. ”Don’t make me have to judge against you!“

  ‘Judge against me?“ He swung toward Perryn now, voice rising. ”You’re the one who’d best watch out for judgment. You and him!“

  He pointed viciously at Gilbey, and Frevisse stood up abruptly, rapping out with bridled anger, “Enough!”

  She had been still long enough to be forgotten, and her suddenness brought heads around toward her and a brief, startled silence into which she said at Tom, “You’re the priory’s villein and my say has been asked in this matter on that account. My say is that angers are too high and hot now for decision to be made. By your reeve’s leave and yours—” with a nod to the jurors and in a quieter voice “—I say we should have a half hour’s pause before we finish.” Long enough to talk Tom Hulcote down and around, she hoped, and give Father Henry more chance at settling the other men.

  ‘A good thought,“ Perryn said quickly. And to the jurors, ”Yes?“ and to a man, they nodded in matching, swift agreement.

  Chapter 7

  The church emptied by fits and starts, in clots of people talking as they crowded out the door into the churchyard or else in little groups around the nave while waiting for the doorway to clear and their own chance to leave.

  Frevisse, in no hurry to be anywhere else, stayed where she was and noted Gilbey and his wife did, too, drawn together aside and turned away from everyone else, Elena’s hand resting on his arm as she said something to him too low for Frevisse to hear. No one approached them, but the several men coming Tom Hulcote’s way were headed off by Father Henry who, with his arms laid across several shoulders and a hand stretched to grip someone’s tunic, turned them aside and toward the door, talking cheerily at them while Father Edmund closed on Tom.

  Mary was there first, holding on to her lover’s arm, standing on tiptoe to say something in his ear. Frevisse, unable to hear past Perryn talking with the jurors, watched as Father Edmund said something to them both that made Tom go sullen, tuck in his chin, and glower at the priest while Mary faced Father Edmund with her chin up and her little mouth in an angry pout, bringing Frevisse to the uncharitable thought that she had better make the most of her prettiness while it lasted, because there looked to be little else to recommend her.

  But then, from what was said of her, making the most of her prettiness was exactly what she had been doing with Tom Hulcote.

  That thought decided Frevisse that she had best do something else than stand here being unkind about Mary Woderove. Sister Thomasine was still standing against the wall beyond the font with lowered eyes and hands folded into her opposite sleeves while the last of the onlookers crowded out the door, and Frevisse moved to go to her but saw Father Henry turn from herding his men out the door, whatever grievance they had been going to share with Tom Hulcote forgotten for now because they were grinning as they went out, and cross toward Sister Thomasine. Not needed there, Frevisse joined Perryn, just finished with the jurors. Gilbey and Elena were going away down the nave toward the door, the jurors trailing after them, and Frevisse and Perryn followed, leaving Father Edmund still in talk with Tom and Mary, saying to them with patient insistence, “Consider. One reason for not making threats is that now, if anything happens in the least way to Simon or Gilbey, you’ll be the first one men will look to for the trouble.”

  Beside her, Perryn made a soft snorting sound that told he had overheard, too, and quietly, for only the two of them to hear, Frevisse asked, “What do you think you’ll decide about the holding when all’s said and done?”

  ‘All’s as said and done as I need for it to be,“ Perryn answered, a tight edge of anger under his words, and for the first time Frevisse realized that, for all that the reeve kept a quiet outside, he would rouse if there was cause enough. ”Unless you’ve strong word against it, the jurors and I agree the holding should be kept in Lord Loveil’s hands for now, with Master Spencer’s leave when he’s been advised of how things stand. It means I’ll have to see to the hire of men to work it for the while and that’s not to the good but better than otherwise at present.“

  From the little liking she had for Mary or Tom or Gilbey, Frevisse had nothing to say against that, but, “Mayhap someone else will offer for it.”

  Perryn shook his head regretfully. “Not so long as it’s a quarreling point ‘tween Gilbey and Tom. There’s none wants to be caught there.”

  Frevisse could see why. She little liked being there herself, even knowing that in a while she would walk away from it. “But Mary will have the profit from the crops this year?”

  ‘Oh, aye. She’ll not be done out of what’s rightfully hers, though that won’t be the way she tells it.“

  They were to the church door now. Past Father Henry and Sister Thomasine going out ahead of them, Frevisse could see the small rain had finished while they were inside and the sun was making a watery-yellow attempt to burn through the clouds.

  ‘Uh,“ said Perryn as a moist, heavy heat met them beyond the church porch, and Frevisse felt the same, on the instant too aware of her layers of clothing and close-fitted wimple. Already among the village women scattered across the churchyard in talk and with an eye to their children playing among the grave mounds some had slipped off their wimples and were settling their veils or kerchiefs over their hair as loosely as when they worked in the fields.

  ‘Good for the last of the haying, though,“ Perryn said.

  And if they could be at it tomorrow, they might well finish soon enough to have a rest between haying’s hard, long labor and the harder, longer one of harvest.

  Frevisse made a small prayer for God’s blessing and to St. Dorothy for abundance, then asked, “What was that about between Walter Hopper and Hamon whatever-his-name?”

  Perryn rumbled a deep, brief laugh. “That was thinking ahead on Walter’s part, that was. The thing is, he holds land enough that his workdays to the priory add up, and most years he has to hire a man or more to work some of them for him while he sees to his own land. In this dealing with Hamon, he gambled last autumn that the bad weather would change this year, knowing that if it did, there’d be out-of-the-ordinary high wages to be paid for anyone he needed to hire.”

  ‘Ah,“ Frevisse said, understanding. ”He therefore stood surety for this Hamon’s debt, certain he’d not be able to repay, and now will have him to work for no wages at all.“

  ‘Instead of having to bargain for others at rising prices, aye. Mind you, it’s no great cheat for Hamon, all considered. Walter will feed him along the way and Walter feeds well, and Hamon wi
ll be no shorter of money at the end than he would have been if he was hiring out on his own since he spends whatever he gets as fast as he gets it, at the alehouse here and on worse in Banbury.“

  ‘He’s a troublemaker?“ Frevisse asked.

  ‘Hamon? Nay, except what he makes for himself. He’s not yet learned and never will, I doubt, that it’s not play that holds life together but work. That makes him fair useless here, where most everything is work. Eh, well, that’s what the rest of us are here for, I sometimes think. To see to such as can’t see to themselves.“

  One of the jurors came up on his other side then, wanting to speak with him. Perryn asked her pardon and drew aside and, glad of the chance to gather herself and her thoughts, Frevisse looked away, over the low church wall at the field beyond it, flowing away in waist-high green grain toward the distant woodshore’s darker band of forest. It was one of the three great fields around the village, each laid out in its own patterning of strips ploughed this way and that with how the land lay and planted or left fallow or set to hay turn and turn and turn about, year by year by year. They stretched out on all sides of the village, laced through with paths for workers going out and coming in and with wider ways for hay wains and harvest carts, with sometimes a tree left standing in a grassy balk, its shade somewhere for folk to sit through the midmorning and afternoon rest times and almost inevitably the tree was large—save here and there where some past giant had gone down with age or in a storm and been replaced by a stripling now no more than maybe half a century old— thick-trunked, the crowns of leaves widespread, their shade familiar to uncounted and mostly forgotten—even their graves in the churchyard replaced by newer ones— generations of Prior Byfield folk.